This paper investigates the relationship between speculative culture and corporate high-quality development in China. The study finds that a stronger speculative culture is associated with lower total factor productivity (TFP), a proxy for high-quality development. This negative relationship is robust to various robustness checks, including the use of instrumental variables and alternative measures of speculative culture. The mechanism analysis suggests that speculative culture negatively impacts innovation, which in turn hinders high-quality development. Heterogeneity tests reveal that the negative effect of speculative culture is less pronounced in larger firms and those with higher analyst attention.
